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Port forwarding??

Hello everyone,
I have few questions, I would appreciate if someone could help me on this.

My current setup at home is a WinXP Box (that is connected to internet, by means of a cable modem) and a dual processor xeon machine with RH 8.0 installed. That machine is on a private LAN(8 PORT SWITCH) with private IP(192.168.XXX.XXX). I have configured web server on this Linux Box, but the problem that I am encountering is that I have only one IP and that is allocated to Winxp box(that is connected to internet through cable net). Can anyone help me on this, that how could I forward an external request to my web server(that is the Linux Box, on private IP), when the box with public IP is XP BOX and the internet gateway for the Linux Box(the web server)?? I am not even sure that what would we name this phenomena? In my opinion , PORT FORWARDING??? no flaming please Please do let me know If I am wrong.

I am also planning to get a Pentium I machine and make it a dual homed router for my network and make it my internet gateway. And both of my XP boxes and linux box(web server) would reside beyond this Pentium-I gateway. What distribution of Linux do you suggest for this? Any further comments to improve this setup(may be some firewall/security suggestions or design suggestions) would be appreciated. All i have now is an XP box and a Linux Box with an 8 port switch. Bu t I plan to improve it as my home network in future.Any help in this regard would be appreciated.

i dont think you can map ports threw a gateway. could be wrong though because ive never known anyone to try it that way. DMZ and all that. the best way to do it or should i say the way im familiar with is to set up the port mapping in the router/firewall. there should be instructions on how to do this on the linux router page or if you get a hardware router you can point your browser to the default gateway that ipconfig gives you. usually 192.168.111.1. there you should find a web page that allows you to map a service from your external ip address to the internal address of the web server using the ports already listed.

Bukhari:V3B48N826 “The Prophet said, ‘Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?’ The women said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind.’”

The first thing to check is to see if your cable modem is operating in bridge mode. If it is, the port forwarding is done on your linux box. If your cable modem is NATing, you first have to setup port forwarding on the cable modem. Effectively, if it is NATing, you're getting an entire DMZ that sits between your cable modem and linux box. Now, if you have the webserver parked behind the linux box, you're going to do double port forwarding (if your cable modem is NATing), which I personally never tried because it's assinine to begin with. Anyway, one of these two scenarios will get you going.

--TH13

Our scars have the power to remind us that our past was real. -- Hannibal Lecter.
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. -- John Wooden

I have the same setup for two of my systems back home. I have Windows Server 2003 Enterprise on the machine that is connected to the internet, while a Slackware b0x in my lan. I use the program PortTunnel for forwarding ports from the windows system to the Linux. I prefer PortTunnel because it has intense logging, raw and refined. And works pretty well under 2003.

i know this may not help much, but im just curious as to why you dont put the RH box in front of the XP box, eliminating the need for a portforwarding and having the RH act as a gateway for the XP machine, and i guess you could say it'd maybe make it a lil more secure, having the RH in front of the XP machine.

ummm....Thanx MMKHAN..its nice to see you here...someone from the homeland...Fpipe is a great tool and is doing the job for me.
cocosapo, Smoothwall was is my mind, I wou ld definitely like to give it a shot.
Tedob1, I dont have a router for this, but I am planning to make a PC based routing machine with IPTABLES on it for firwarding everything to my servers parked behind this router.
RCGREEN, I tried to download that tool but probably the link was broken.
thehorse13, my cable modem is not NATTING( I have verified that), but I have been successfull in running some port forwarding tools to my linux machine.
Dagreta1 Port tunnel is also a great tool, and I am planning to look into it in near future.Thanx for your advice.
Deftones12 , yes that can also be done. Not a bad option. I didnt do this setup for any particular reasons. But in near future I am planning to park my these servers beyond Sorcery/Smoothwall/Cyotye gateway and hopefully would be able to make some difference in terms of security and reliability.

Besides Thank you AntiOnline for solving my problems once again.AO rocks as ever.Besides I am sick of seeing that grey dot and that offending msg (coz of my negative points), whenever iI sign in to AO. errr...Hope to get it off some day....
Thank you every one
Ommy